The number on every guide is ₩1,550. That is the base fare, and it covers the first 10 kilometres.
Ride to the end of a line and the single-journey ticket runs to ₩3,550. Same network, same card reader, more than twice the money.
Distance is the obvious part. The rules that catch people out are the small ones — the tap you forget on the way out, the thirty-minute window, the gate you walked through by mistake. Here is what the operator's own pages say about each.
The base fare buys 10 kilometres. After that it climbs in steps
Seoul Metro sets the fare on a distance-proportional system across the whole metropolitan network, measured by the shortest route between your two stations rather than the way you actually travelled.
| Distance | Adult | Teen (13–19) | Child (6–12) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 10 km | ₩1,550 | ₩900 | ₩550 |
| 10–50 km | +₩100 per 5 km | +₩80 per 5 km | +₩50 per 5 km |
| Beyond 50 km | +₩100 per 8 km | +₩80 per 8 km | +₩50 per 8 km |
| Outside the metropolitan area Pyeongtaek–Sinchang, Gapyeong–Chuncheon | +₩100 per 4 km | +₩80 per 4 km | +₩50 per 4 km |
Notice the last row. Once the train leaves the Greater Seoul zone the meter speeds up: every 4 kilometres instead of every 8. That is the stretch out to Chuncheon or down to Sinchang, and it is why a day trip on the subway can cost more than you budgeted.
The Seoul city page publishes the full distance table. At the top of it, over 130 km, a single-journey ticket is ₩3,550 and a transit card is ₩3,450.
Tap out. Every single time
This is the rule that costs visitors the most, and the operator states it plainly: the card must touch the reader when you get on and when you get off. If it does not properly touch on the way out, in their words, the benefit of a free transfer is lost, and each mode of transport you used is charged separately.
On the subway the exit gate makes you tap anyway. On buses it is easy to walk off through the front door without touching the reader, and then the subway leg you take twenty minutes later is billed as a fresh journey rather than a transfer.
If you are holding a paper single-journey ticket rather than a card, this does not apply to you — but that ticket costs ₩100 more, and teenagers get no discount on it at all. A 15-year-old buying single tickets pays the adult ₩1,650 every time.
The transfer window is 30 minutes. At night it is 60
The combined fare only applies if you board the next service within 30 minutes of tapping off the last one. Miss it and the system treats the second leg as an independent journey with its own base fare.
Between 9 PM and 7 AM that window doubles to 60 minutes.
Seoul Metro's English page puts the ceiling at a maximum of five transfers per passenger per trip. Within the 10 km base distance those transfers are free — you pay the highest base fare among the modes you used, not one fare per vehicle.
One more thing worth knowing before 6:30 in the morning: the first ride of the day gets a 20% early-bird discount if you pay by card. It does not apply to a leg you reached by transferring from something else.
Walked through the gate by mistake? You have 15 minutes
This one is genuinely useful and almost never mentioned in English. Seoul runs a re-entry scheme: if you tap out and then re-enter at the same station within 15 minutes, the base fare is not deducted again — instead the system records it as one transfer.
So it is not free, exactly. It spends one of your transfers. But it turns a ₩1,550 mistake into nothing, which matters if you went through the wrong gate, or needed a toilet that sits outside the paid area.
The city introduced it as a 10-minute trial in July 2023 and extended it to 15 minutes on 7 October 2023, adding the Ui-Sinseol and Sillim lines at the same time. Seoul's English page lists where it applies, with that same October 2023 reference date:
| Line | Section |
|---|---|
| Line 1 | (Underground) Seoul Station – (Underground) Cheongnyangni |
| Line 3 | Jichuk – Ogeum |
| Line 4 | Jinjeop – Namtaeryeong |
| Line 6 | Eungam – Bonghwasan |
| Line 7 | Jangam – Onsu |
| Lines 2, 5, 8, 9, Ui-Sinseol, Sillim | All sections |
Two conditions to hold on to: the same station, and 15 minutes. Leave by one station and re-enter at the next one and you are simply buying another ride.
Who rides for nothing
The free-ride list is shorter than people assume, and tourist status is not on it.
Free travel goes to passengers aged 65 and over, to people with disabilities — a registered guardian rides free alongside a severely disabled passenger — and to men and women of national merit on the same terms.
Children under 6 travel free, but with a cap: up to three toddlers per accompanying adult. From the fourth, the child fare applies.
If you are here for a month, the commuter pass changes the arithmetic
Not a tourist product, but worth knowing if your trip is long. The Seoul-only commuter pass is ₩68,200 and gives you 60 rides within 30 days from the day you load it. It dies at whichever comes first — the sixtieth ride or the thirtieth day.
The pricing is transparent: base card fare × 44 rides × a 15% discount. At 60 rides that works out to about ₩1,137 a trip. Distance-based versions run from ₩68,200 up to ₩129,000 depending on how far you go.
For a shorter visit, the passes aimed at travellers are a different calculation — I compared two of them in the Climate Card versus M-Pass write-up.
What I could not confirm
Four things I would have liked to include and will not guess at.
The 15-minute re-entry section list is dated October 2023 on Seoul's English page. The city said at the time it was negotiating with Gyeonggi, Incheon and KORAIL to extend the scheme. Whether that has happened since, I could not verify, so treat the table above as the last officially published version rather than today's map.
Last train times vary by line and direction and I could not find a single official table covering all of them. Check the station board or an app on the night.
Express train sections and timetables are not on the fare pages I read.
And the deposit on a single-journey ticket — the amount you get back when you return the card to a machine — is not stated on the English pages.
The short version
₩1,550 for the first 10 km, then it steps up, and it steps up faster once you leave the metropolitan area. Tap on and tap off or you lose the transfer discount. You have 30 minutes to make a transfer, 60 between 9 PM and 7 AM, and up to five transfers per trip. Wrong gate? Same station, 15 minutes, and it costs you a transfer instead of a fare.
For what the rest of a day in the city costs at published prices, see what Seoul costs. For which card to be holding in the first place, and why an overseas credit card will not open the subway gate yet, money in Korea covers it.
Fares, transfer rules and the passenger terms are published in English by the operator.
Check the Seoul Metro fare page →Sources
- Seoul Metro, User Guide > Fare (English)
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, Modes of Transport > Subway (English) — fares as of 28 June 2025, re-entry sections as of 7 October 2023
- Seoul Metropolitan Government transport newsroom, notice on extending subway re-entry to 15 minutes, 26 September 2023
Checked on 14 August 2026. Fares and rules change, so confirm before you travel.
